Two steps toward full equality

The Supreme Court's same-sex marriage rulings offered a refreshing breeze of equality and the hope for more to come.

Much is left unresolved, and the decisions fall well short of extending marriage rights to all gay and lesbian Americans.

Yet the rulings offer more reason to cheer than criticize.

In striking down a major provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the act is "a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons."

The law banned marriage benefits under federal law for legally married same-sex couples. It created inequities that were bound to increase as more states embrace same-sex marriage.

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 51 percent nationwide support same-sex marriage. In 1996, the year President Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law, only 27 percent supported marriage equality.

Kennedy's opinion in United States vs. Windsor notes this evolution in thinking:

"? Until recent years, many citizens had not even considered the possibility that two persons of the same sex might aspire to occupy the same status and dignity as that of a man and woman in lawful marriage." He added that, for some people, the traditional definition of marriage "became even more urgent, more cherished when challenged. For others, however, came the beginnings of a new perspective, a new insight."

When the court looked at the law from this new perspective, it found the law amounted to "writing inequality into the entire United States Code."

The court punted on this one, ducking a decision on the merits by determining that those who appealed lacked standing. This resets matters to a U.S. District Court decision that declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional. Good news for gays and lesbians in California who want to wed. But it does not reach beyond California.

If the court had stepped out too far in front of public opinion, the backlash would have created more delays in the inevitable progression toward marriage equality.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote of "deliberately transposable" passages in the Defense of Marriage Act decision that could easily be applied to state laws against same-sex marriages. "By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition."

He's quite right to say "it is just a matter of listening and waiting for the other shoe." Marriage equality will gain full constitutional recognition.